


To the Moon

by wynnebat



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Forgiveness, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Past Rape/Non-con, past imprisonment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-14
Updated: 2014-09-14
Packaged: 2018-04-19 23:11:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4764536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wynnebat/pseuds/wynnebat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It seems to be the thing to do: get pardoned from your crimes—your crimes of kidnapping, of torture, of starvation, of standing aside and silencing the screams coming from your dungeons—and then apologize for them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	To the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written sometime around September 14, 2014; OneNote dates are a bit iffy for me, but it seems like the right timeframe.

There's a beauty in the Forbidden Forest at night, a silence and peace that Luna struggles to find elsewhere. She's glad to be back in the castle, among friends, with a father to mail letters to, and a home just a train ride away. But she'd also thought it would be better than this. That she would be better than this.

She's brought a blanket and found her clearing, and when she lies down, she can see a hundred stars in the sky. It's lovely, and her mind reflexively thinks of nargles, but stutters when her enthusiasm just doesn't reach the way it used to, before the war. Before everything.

They stole things from her in the dark house. Worldly things, to be sure. Things some evil people happily take. It's a bad word, take. She doesn't like it.

She didn't like them.

But they also stole her cherished love of animals until Luna felt so terribly empty.

Luna closes her eyes, breathes deeply, once, twice, three and on. When she opens her eyes again, there's someone lying next to her.

"Sorry I'm late," Harry says.

"It's fine," she replies, and Harry glances at her because she can't quite get the tone right.

It's very hard, being honest. The hardest thing to be. Harry doesn't know what happened, but he still cares. And so does Neville, and Ginny, and other students of Hogwarts, her peers under the Carrows' tutelage. But Luna can't seem to be able to speak. Then, she doesn't have to, because there are footsteps coming closer, and she looks up to see someone who's not late, because he'd never been invited. She stands up, wand in hand, and Harry is close behind her.

"I'm sorry," Draco begins. It seems it's a day of apologies.

"Malfoy—" Harry cuts in, but stops at Luna's look. She wants to hear this more than she doesn't.

She doesn't have to urge him to go on.

"I'm sorry. I heard them... I heard them hurt you. In the dungeons of my manor. And neither me nor my father nor my mother did anything. I know it's cold comfort. Not any comfort at all. But if there's ever anything I can do for you, all you need to do is ask."

 _I don't want your apology,_ she thinks, _I want your blood. I want your screams. I want your hair the color of dirt because you spend months imprisoned, I want your bones to break and mend and break again like mine, I want your skin to wither from the lack of food when each day there was a bountiful party upstairs._

She doesn't think: _I want you to know how every second of what they did to me felt._

She wants to turn away like Malfoy did the one time he went down into the dungeons. She wants to curse him. She doesn't want to slap him, because something so physical still makes her heart hurt.

Instead she takes his wrists, like they took hers, and spreads them away from his body. They stay there, lifted in the air, as she puts her arms around him and tightens.

She is not a boa constrictor. He will not suffocate. No matter how hard she presses, he will be fine.

"I'm so, so sorry. I don't deserve to..." he whispers, his arms around her gentle and unsure.

"I don't think you do, either. But people don't seem to get what they deserve, do they?"

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> Complete; no sequel planned.


End file.
